Earth Works

Working with the so-called earth paints has been a series of discoveries. They are comprised of mostly mustard yellows, rusty oranges, chocolate browns and brick reds. On their own, the colours have a good intensity and they make very neutral mixes which are good for olive greens and 'tree bark' browns. For abstract art, they work best as a contrast point for the brighter 'synthetic' paints like quinacridones and azo pigments. In the study above you see how the earthy browns make the sunrise glow even more. 

Rise and Surprise, 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2629a)

 

I put 'synthetic' in quotes because the earth paints are mostly synthetic nowadays, derived from iron oxide byproducts of the steel industry. Some might still be sourced from pigment mines found throughout Europe and other parts of the world, but the high production pigments for bricks and plastics are made the industrial route. The 'irony' is that when iron oxidizes, it becomes brittle and weak and changes colour, that process is the very definition of rust. However, the artist can use the oxidized iron as a pigment and has done so since ancient times. In the painting I used iron oxide reds (PR101 and PR102), raw sienna (PBr7), and some yellow ochre (PY43). I was inspired by Keith Haring, I saw some of his art sell on the show 'Pawn Stars' where they buy and sell valuable junk, and his works sold for tens of thousands of dollars. He passed away in the 90's and was best known for commercializing the graffiti style as fine art.

Iron Oxide Factory, 10 x 11" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2657a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Brazil

Brazil is a vast country with many aspects to its landscape. Rolling hills, plains, twisting rivers interspersed with arid land and rugged coastlines. I was drawn to the Amazon river as a subject, its shape, colours and story seem to describe a lot about Brazil. When the colonials came, the river people had to either join them, fight, or flee. Many still live near the Amazon and on the numerous islands found in the river delta. The local people have a vast wealth of resources including land, fish, fruit and medicines found in the dense rainforest. Sadly, resource exploitation and climate change is taking its toll on Brazil and its delicate rainforest. In this painting, I was inspired by the river, and depicted a typical ferry that the locals take to get from place to place. They dance up on the top floor, and the local indigenous people will row boats out to intercept the ferries, then they climb with ropes and sell shrimp or fruit or whatever they can harvest to the people on the boat. The travelers also throw bags of supplies out to the locals like shoes and clothes. The ship captains know this and allow these transactions. We learned all this mostly from watching a documentary on YouTube called A River and its People by Stop Over. It is an old fashioned documentary and well worth the time to watch it. 

The bottom left represents construction, the land has been cleared and the stilts being built will be used to support a small house. They have to build houses that way because the river floods all the time. I also depicted a bounty of imaginary fruit plants, there are oranges, papayas, mangoes, bananas, coffee, lemons and whatever else you can imagine!  

World Inspired Landscapes: Brazil with fruit tree, 10 x 11" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2657b)

Where in Montreal? with Spring Palette

A short bike ride brought me to a secret field, it is some kind of vacant lot or nature reserve I hope it is the latter since there is not much green space around yet. The city plans to plant thousands of trees along the highway embankments and new path. In the background is the mighty M2, Mount Royal, I omitted most of the houses and simplified the Oratory. Last week I painted a similar scene but from the North.

Field with view of Mount Royal, 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2630a)

 

Next I rode over to Parc Ignace-Bourget which I had seen on the map and wanted to check out. There was a tall hill they made probably for tobogganing in the winter. In the summer it appears to be used for exercise, and a disc-golf course. Disc golf is like Ultimate but without a team. There were plenty of great views from the top of the hill, I will have to return when the trees fill out some more. Just beyond, was an enormous pile of what appeared to be melted snow from the snow removal. I don't know if there was actual snow or this was just the left-over gravel. Even though the great heap was close, it looked like a Himalayan mountain range, right here in Montreal!

Montreal Himalayas, 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2655)

 

Finally I looped down to Parc Angrignon which was on the way back, and found this nice scene at the end of the little lake with no name. The trees were a distinctive dark yellowish, and the water reflections were a symphony of blue green and yellow. To get the water sparkle I dragged the brush quickly. This was on the new Fabriano cold press block I got, the quality is noticeably different than the d'Arches I just finished. The paper holds washes, dries bright, and is smooth feeling on the brush.

Symphony of Blue Green and Yellow 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2631a)

After expanding my palette and making adjustments in April, it still felt a little too complicated, so I reduced down to 19 colours which is closer to what I used for years. I also adjusted swapped venetian red out and added perylene maroon for increased chroma. Here it is although they are actually on the larger palette, I drew them here like on a smaller palette: 

top row:

yellow Ochre (PY43)

umber (PBr7)

raw umber (PBr7)

burnt yellow ochre (PR102)

perylene maroon (PR179)

bone black (PBk6)

indo blue (PB60)

perylene black (PBk31) actually a dark green

phthalo green yellow shade (PG36)

leaf green (PY154+PG7)

benzi lemon yellow (PY175)

 

bottom row:

benzi yellow (PY154)

isoindo orange-yellow (PY110)

pyrol vermillion, orange-red (PR255)

ferrari red (PR254) 

quin magenta (PR122)

quin purple (PV55) 

phthalo blue (PB15:0)

Ochre Spring

Ochre is one of the oldest pigments known to art, it can be found on rock walls and in caves from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe ten thousand years from now my ochre paintings will still be around, at least if the internet is still be around somebody can look at them on my blog! Actually I picked up some watercolour ground from Schmincke at Deserres, that is a product that you can paint onto any surface including rocks, and once it dries you can do watercolour on it like normal. Maybe the designs in this painting could be used on the rock painting. I did a larger version of this painting yesterday, I called it Ochre Mind, but Cilei thought it would be better kept until the fall season. It needed more yellow she said. So this version is primarily ochres along with some synthetics like bismuth yellow (PY184). The paper is the same brand I used for the palette cleanser series. This was a palette cleanser of sorts but I decided to give them proper names instead of just numbering the paintings. I quite like this one, has a real hippy vibe (I am listening to Grateful Dead right now).

Ochre Spring,  9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2658a)

Subject Matters

Choosing the right subject matters. There is no one rule for choosing a scene, usually for me it is a combination of inspiration and opportunity. Today's painting was more opportunity, I got out in the afternoon with a 40% chance of rain and decided to stay close to home, in fact, our condo is in the background. In the foreground is a perspective drawing of the drug store, sidewalk and road. Most pieces of artwork contain some form of people, whether it be figures or portrait. The viewers of a piece of artwork will feel an immediate connection to images of people (or cute animals), there are plenty of examples of famous painting with people in them. It is also possible to convey emotion in a landscape, albeit in an abstract way. Today's painting might convey a sense of daily routine, or impending rain, or emptiness. To me, the brick wall in the foreground was the inspiration, I wanted to see if I could use burnt yellow ochre (a maroon earth, PR102) without mixing it with any other colours. Sure enough it turned out great! Next time I just need to get the pedestrians and their pets into the painting.

Somerled Bricks, 5 x 8" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2633b)

Red Ochre Fiction

We rode out to the mall this morning, there were very few people and everyone wearing masks. Luckily Montreal has stabilized with the COVID and we hope it continues to improve. I got some more of the 9 x 12" paper I used to make the 'palette cleanser' series, and also found this Fabriano 5 x 7" cold press block with 20 sheets at a good price. I was trying not to buy more paint, but they had a clearance sale and I picked up English Red Ochre (PR101) and Burnt Yellow Ochre (PR102) Daniel Smith brand, and more of the amazing umber (PBr7) from PWC that I first got last year and have used about half of it already.

The funny thing about ochre is that it is mostly made of clay (limonite, geothite, silicates) with a very small amount of iron oxide. That means it can not be burnt (heated) to change its colour significantly.  These product names (burnt ochre or red ochre) are thus pure fiction, the evidence is also in the pigment code PR101/PR102 means iron oxide red. It's no problem really, I knew well what the colour would be after reading about it extensively and examining the colour swatches on Blundell's blog. Most of these colours look the same, I may just mix them all in one giant pot and call it Peter's brick red! 

This painting was also done with the new paper block, it was really quite fantastic, the edges held, it did not buckle, and as you can tell the paint dries very bright. I think I'll pick up more since 20 sheets will only last a few weeks at the rate I'm going. The burnt yellow ochre was used in the retaining wall in the painting, it is a deep maroon, and the English red is in the other brick wall to the right, it is identical to a burnt sienna.  Let's call the new paper and paint a belated birthday present. 

Benny Retaining Wall, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2631b)

Saturday Painting Trip, to the North

 

Riding to the North is tricky in Montreal, there is no obvious route from NDG up to the North shore at the moment. The city plans to build a connecting path for walking and cycling that would run up the west part of NDG crossing the tracks and highway. For now the route is via the Decarie Mall, and past the old Hippodrome horse racing and Ultimate frisbee pitch. Yes I used to play Ultimate in the beleaguered field you see in the painting, although the hippodrome is completely bulldozed. One piece of good news, I saw hundreds of trees ready to plant, hopefully that means they are planting a park or forest here. You see Mount Royal (M2!) in the background, and the nature returning in the mid and foreground.

Old Hippodrome site, 5 x 8" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2633a)

 

As I continued Northwards I saw this tree very close to where I had done the previous painting, and a good spot to sit on a concrete block. I wanted to write down the colours I used because it came out looking really fresh like spring. 

 The colour of the tree foliage was a yellow-chartreuse that I made using the new leaf green (PY154+PG7), umber (PBr7), and hints of orange (PO36) and green (PG36). The branches were with raw umber (PBr7) and indo blue (PB60) with some red ochre (PR101) for the twigs. The shadow was bone black (PBk9) and perylene green (PBk31) mostly. For the sky PB15, for clouds venetian red/indo blue. Finally, the dandelions were yellow (PY154) and yellow-orange (PY110). It may sound like a lot of colours, but I actually removed a bunch from the palette to simplify things a little.

 Lemon and Lime Tree, 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2630b)

 

As I rode northwards the north shore and Prairie River seemed close, but the wind was fierce and sun going down. So I stopped at Lufa farms, the place where we get all our vegetables delivered from. You can see the rooftop greenhouses and delivery trucks. I had to sandwich the trees and side of the massive building into the composition. The tree by the way was perylene black with bone black, they turned out great, with a deep green pine look which contrasts all the shadow greys. Last year I made it out a bit earlier and painted Lufa from about the same vantage point. This bike ride is only possible in good weather.

Lufa Farms with Pine Trees. 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2655b)